Bush Pledges Aid for ‘Long Haul’

President Bush on Thursday promised the hundreds of thousands displaced by Hurricane Katrina that the government would be with them “for the long haul,” and Congress voted to provide $51.8 billion in emergency funds to finance the relief and reconstruction programs.

Despite the expanded efforts, which increase total federal spending on the emergency to $62.3 billion, partisan rancor undermined attempts to project a spirit of unity. And new polls indicated that many Americans were displeased with the government’s performance.

Substantial majorities of respondents in three national surveys expressed disappointment with Bush’s handling of the emergency and characterized the government’s initial relief efforts as too slow. Bush’s job approval ratings slipped to new lows.

The dissatisfaction suggested that the White House was having trouble diverting attention from its initial response and was instead focusing attention on signs of progress.

In New Orleans, meanwhile, police tried to root out residents who, 10 days after the hurricane, still were refusing to leave their flooded homes. And emergency workers fanned out across the city as water levels continued to drop, exposing the bodies of Katrina’s victims.

“We have much more work to do,” the president said, speaking of assisting the residents of New Orleans and the surrounding coastal regions of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama whose lives have been upended by the hurricane that laid waste to much of the Gulf Coast last week.

In his televised address, Bush urged victims to act quickly to get in touch with representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is coordinating the government relief effort.

The number to call is 1-800-621-FEMA, Bush said. About 3,000 operators were staffing the phone lines, he said, and more were on the way. For those storm victims with access to computers, assistance is available at www.govbenefits.gov and www.fema.gov.Bush said the government aid package included an initial cash payment of $2,000 per family to help with immediate needs, such as food and clothing. FEMA representatives will help get cash into the hands of people staying in emergency shelters and other temporary housing, he said.

He told evacuees: “By registering for the first $2,000, you will begin the process of arranging for the delivery of other, longer-term assistance” -- including health, welfare, housing, food stamps, school lunches, child care, mental health, foster care and job training.

One action Bush did not trumpet publicly drew a quick protest from a leading Democrat. By executive order, Bush suspended the Davis-Bacon Act in areas of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi, a move that will allow federal contractors to pay less than the local “prevailing wage” on construction projects.

Rep. George Miller of Martinez, senior Democrat on the House committee that oversees labor law, said the move would allow employers to pay “poverty wages” as they rebuild from the hurricane.

“The administration is using the devastation of Hurricane Katrina to cut the wages of people desperately trying to rebuild their lives,” Miller said in a statement, noting that the prevailing wage for construction in New Orleans was about $9 an hour. “At under $9 an hour, workers certainly won’t be able to rebuild their livelihoods.”

On Capitol Hill, Democrats said they would boycott a planned House-Senate inquiry into the administration’s management of the catastrophe. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) accused Republicans of trying to whitewash what she characterized as a failure of the federal government to properly respond to the ravages of the hurricane.

The decision by Pelosi and her Senate counterpart, Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), not to appoint any Democrats to the hurricane investigation panel provoked a quick condemnation from Republicans.

“People can join in and help get the job done, or some people can stand aside and criticize,” said House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). “But you know, we have work to do. We can’t be distracted by partisanship, by finger-pointing, by name-calling.... The American people expect us to get this work done.”

In announcing the expanded government assistance, Bush said all residents of counties that had been declared disaster areas would be granted special evacuee status, allowing authorities to waive traditional requirements to verify identity and determine eligibility.

“Many of you have been evacuated from the flooded and destroyed areas and now find yourselves far from home, without proper identification or even a change of clothes,” Bush said.

He promised the outreach program would provide the help they needed and “cut through the red tape” to get them that help as quickly and easily as possible.

In a brief aside to governors, Bush promised to work with Congress to reimburse their states for the cost of providing food, shelter and other services to evacuees.

“We understand this is going to strain your budget,” he said. “So the federal government ... will operate under this principle: You should not be penalized for showing compassion.”

The administration’s outreach effort Thursday included a troubleshooting tour of the afflicted Gulf Coast region by Vice President Dick Cheney and appearances by First Lady Laura Bush to generate interest in the needs of displaced schoolchildren. The president designated next Friday as a “national day of prayer and remembrance.”

On Capitol Hill, it was a day of frenetic activity, political maneuvering and raw emotions as lawmakers continued to grapple with the scope of the disaster and to grope for ways to respond.

Sen. Mary L. Landrieu (D-La.), returning to the chamber for the first time since the hurricane turned her hometown of New Orleans into a sodden ghost town, mourned the destruction and delivered a blistering assessment of the federal response.

“Thousands are dead, and only God knows how many,” Landrieu said.

By late afternoon, the House had voted 410 to 11 to approve the emergency spending. All members of the California delegation voted in favor, except for Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Santa Ana), who did not vote. The Senate followed suit Thursday evening, voting 97 to 0.

The federal government has committed $62.3 billion to the relief effort. Besides the $51.8 billion approved Thursday, Congress appropriated $10.5 billion last week. Yet these funds are expected to last only several weeks, and reconstruction costs could rise as high as $200 billion, officials said.

Some Republicans questioned whether FEMA could manage such a massive, long-term rebuilding effort. Several leading senators called on Bush to appoint a senior official to coordinate the federal effort.

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), chairman of the Budget Committee, said the government should establish “some type of structured commission, where you basically have a focus point with an individual of great ability and national recognition leading the effort.”

Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who lost his family home to the storm, said in an interview that he believed former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani or former Sen. John B. Breaux (D-La.) would make a good reconstruction overseer. Other lawmakers have suggested retired U.S. Army Gen. Tommy Franks, who led the invasion of Iraq.

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said the president welcomed all suggestions for improving the recovery effort and would give them consideration. “This is a time for people to be offering big ideas and offering ways for us to move forward on the rebuilding and recovery,” McClellan said.

But McClellan would not respond to specific proposals, including calls by some lawmakers for the resignation of FEMA’s director, Michael D. Brown, or the removal of FEMA from the Department of Homeland Security.

Three national polls released Thursday showed large majorities dissatisfied with government’s response to Hurricane Katrina. Disapproval of Bush’s overall job performance reached the highest levels of his presidency.

In contrast to initial surveys last week that found little effect on Bush’s standing, the new surveys from independent pollster John Zogby, CBS News and the nonpartisan Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found the president’s approval rating sagging amid widespread discontent over his handling of the crisis.

In the Zogby and CBS polls, about three-fifths of Americans said they disapproved of Bush’s handling of the response to the hurricane; fewer than two-fifths approved. In the Pew survey, 28% said Bush did “all he could” to speed relief efforts, while 67% said he could have done more. Likewise, about two-thirds of those surveyed by CBS said Bush’s response was too slow.

Government at all levels fared poorly in the new polls. At least 58% of those polled in all three surveys gave the federal government failing grades for its handling of the situation, with more than three-quarters in the CBS poll expressing such negative views. State and local authorities received slightly better reviews, with 51% disapproving of their performance in the Pew survey, and 70% in the CBS poll.

Times staff writers Ronald Brownstein, Richard Simon and Aaron Zitner in Washington, and Edwin Chen in Gulfport, Miss., contributed to this report.